Massacra

Production: Strong guitars and understated but clear vocals and drums.

Review: Taking metal into new realms of speed and structure Massacra contributed this opus of speeding microsymphonies of information at high speed with an inspired sense of freedom in nihilism and creativity, making Slayer-styled death metal into whipping destructive metal emphasizing tone more than bass and correspondingly indulging further in structuralism using melodic stylings inspired by classical and baroque music.

With a flutterstrum creating fluid tremelo power chord melodies enwrapping one another through battering interruptions that drive structural change in tempo, this band indulge their proclivity for longer song development and tighter thematic development through a plentiful hand of riffs and textural variants used in sequence to maintain a narrative manipulation of mood. Although often as a result top-heavy with riffs, this release maintains continuity through diligent orchestration of suspended rhythm and melodic intelligibility across a wide range of riffing, creating a songwriting style that is comparable to the faster death metal bands from South America.

Racing drums follow linear patterns with internal crossover and direct focus on pockets of rhythm folding into matrices of rhythmic suspension, shifting with discipline between pattern and pace to support needs of guitars changing backdrop of coalescing melodic shape, while seared linear vocals emphasize dominant rhythm in the style of anthemic speed metal/thrash crossover, without the self-evident symmetry to phrasing and the tendency to ram emphatic beats through the floor with harmonic emphasis. Degenerate in its use of simplicity, this band over time assemble complexity of enduring depth and joy in navigation.

Mesmerizing in constant resonance of strumming speed and belligerent ability to change narrative significance and refocus it around an internal data point at will, the music of Massacra here flowers in full ambition and, while not as proficient in songwriting technique or instrumentalism as their second work, inspires adulation and imitation consistently for its raw sense of potential in chaos and animalistic nihilism.

Production: Compact and flexible sound.

Review: Frenetic and urgent in its whirling collision of speeding objects synchronized to a tremelo strum just under the pace of a hummingbird, this music moves fluidly through phrases joined by abrupt reconfigurations of structure to form an inner narrative of changing shape motion reflecting the aesthetic and emotion of each phase of the developing piece. Foundational in their influence on both rippingly fast death metal and the rising black metal genre, Massacra were among the first metal bands to give rise to classically-influenced structure in nihilistic music.

Feral vocals slash across pounding rhythm carrying direct motifs of revolving riffs which in inversion or recombination transfer the listener through Wagnerian visual illustration in sound: shaping harmonic space in collage of juxtapositions to demonstrate change, allowing basic poetic ideas to expand into song structure conveying not catharsis but logical realization within a context where catharsis is an event of listener decision. Cadenced to the motion of human beings in times of war or great need, the rhythms carrying melodic progression in the shifting layers of riffage that compose these hymns of violence are distinct in hook and architecture, and open a world of possible lexicon in texture and shape that has yet to be fully explored.

Offbeat and often utilizing internal transitions to project continuity into dynamic shifts in tempo and timbre, with custom technique in strumming and string damping that allows a range of textures to be expressed within the fabric of phrase variation, these songs use an intense whipping strum and tight songwriting to produce an atmosphere of depraved decay and anarchistic self-consumption, in which only the voice of art - and by extension, some form of truth or vision - prevails.

Thematically obscurist but metaphorically diverse in its consultation of lost catacombs of morbid concept expressed in distinctive and innovative riffing, the music on this album is the last work of intensity and energy from these madmen, with later releases opting for a more mainstream style. As the most honed product of the creative process behind this groundbreaking band, the second full length from Massacra expresses the raw freedom and intelligence found in rebellious and apocalyptic music of this level of discipline and intelligence.